Now more than ever, the lyrics of your song “Atemuda” are real to us. In that song, you admonished that we live with the end in mind. You admonished that we do not live as though life is all about eating and drinking. “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that judgement” you quoted. You however failed to tell us that you would leave us soon. You left us shocked and pensive, You caused memories to come rushing through our minds, You left us in tears, but most importantly, You forced us to take stock of our lives. In death, you reechoed this very important truth: It is appointed unto man once to die and after death judgement. No man knows the day nor the hour; Live with the end in mind.

To the world, you were a pastor and a musician, but to us you were so much more. You were our father, friend, confidant, teacher and counsellor. Whenever you were in a room with us, our smiles and hysterical laughters were assured. You had a way of getting all of us to feel comfortable around you. You would always be the one to see through our generic “I’m fines”. You could get us talking faster than anyone could. You always had snippets of information and sound counsel to share.

You taught us integrity and humility. You taught us to let our “Yes” be “Yes” and our “No” “No”. We never doubted you if you said a Yes or No because we knew you meant it every time. You used some “Gospel Musicians” from your childhood who were drunkards as examples, when you tried to show us how failing to uphold one’s moral principles belittled whatever message one was trying to put across. Whenever we so much as suggested that you were a “star”, You would say “No, I like to think of myself as a moon. Like the moon I have no light of my own, I only reflect God’s light” You reflected the light so well that everyone saw it and was attracted to its brightness. Whenever we got caught up in the aesthetics of a song, you made sure we were pointed to what was important. You had a way of making the lyrics of the song come alive. It was always about God.

One day, we came to you with a question. “Unco Dan, why do you only release an album every five years? You write a song every other day”. We know this because we heard him sing them and he even wrote with us on occasion. “It is all about quality, not numbers or frequency”, you said. You insisted on quality in everything you did. If it had to be done, then it had to be done well or you would have whoever do it until it was done to specification. Most importantly, you taught us that quality didn’t always have to mean expensive. You would much rather organise to go and sing and evangelise in a Secondary School where you would receive nothing as payment than buy a new ipad for instance. You used your First Generation ipad to the end. You never once put money into buying flashy things. It had to be quality but it didn’t have to be expensive.

We consider ourselves privileged to have lived and known you in such close proximity. To have been the first ones to hear your music, to have written with you on occasion, to have been carried in your bosom as babies, to have been nurtured and cared for by you, to have met all your VIP friends.

Unco Dan, we miss you already. We miss coming to your room to worry you with plenty talking when you came home tired after your ministrations, we miss the car rides with you, we miss the days when you would gather us all in the boys-quarters and teach us songs, we miss staying up all night listening to and watching Gospel concerts, we miss your unannounced surprises, we miss your deep voice on the phone: “Shalom”, was almost always the first word you would say. Unco Dan, we miss you. We miss your hugs especially. You will always have a special place in all our hearts.

We are saddened by your passing but we are comforted by the fact that you lived your life with the end in sight. We can almost unmistakably hear the voice of The Master saying:

Well Done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord

Most people believe that “women are impossible to understand”. I wasn’t one of such people. If you have 7 sisters plus several aunties with whom you relate very well, you’re bound to learn a thing or two about how they think, act and/or react to certain situations. Before my third year in the university though, I hadn’t realised that I could “very easily” interact with girls until my colleague SOCIOSO Executive started calling me “ladies man”, reason being that the girls seemed to be comfortable around me.

I won’t be talking about any girl in particular, but I will throw a couple of random “descriptions”; of girls I have personally encountered as well as those I’ve seen in the lives of some of my close friends. If you’re a female (especially my friends) and reading this, try and find yourself in the descriptions. I could very well be referring to you. Guys, do you know any such girls? Let’s go:

There’s that girl you crush on. You don’t know her well, you barely see her but you just like her.

One time one of my uncles accused me of being “grandma’s favorite grandson”. His reason was this; they had been home together all day but she (grandma) hadn’t bothered to cook. No, not till I arrived. ” ‘Oye nii? meni obaa ye?’ she asked and proceeded to the kitchen to cook” he narrated. I simply smiled and continued eating my food. I wasn’t going to let him spoil it for me.

I am of this notion that Love is inextricably linked with food. If you do not share this view I suppose it is because your grandma never prepared food for you to eat. Anyway, I am not here to talk about my grandma’s many exploits as a chef of choice.

As I begun doing recently, I am here to share experiences, not from a trotro today though, but from a……. lets call it “food joint” for lack of a proper classification.

This kind of food joint is very typical in Ghanaian society. They are scattered across the capital as well as regional capitals and big towns and cities in the country. They take the form of kiosks that are partially covered with mosquito nets and a square outlet of some sort in the front where the vendor can hand over food to her customers. In a few instances, the vendor has a long rectangular table almost the same length as the two benches it comes with, one on each side and if you’re lucky it is in an enclosed space. They also have all sorts of names; “Chop Better”, “Auntie Salamatou Special Waakye” and the like

The joint which I frequent every other day at work has no name. The woman works with a team of about five or so girls. One who dishes out food with her, two to serve dishes and to make sure the eating area is clean, one to wash dishes and maybe a couple more in the kitchen. She sells plain rice with stew, boiled yam with kontomire stew, (also referred to as palava sauce), kokonte with palm-nut or groundnut soup and banku with okra stew. All these come with boiled eggs, fried fish, tuna, meat and more; whichever you’d like to have it.

Today, I spotted all sorts of relationship dynamics at the joint. Not that it is the first time, just not as much…

There was this girl at the stand when I arrived. She was skinny and dark and wore a slightly oversized straight dress. She smiled at me and politely asked me to go first. I didn’t know why but I did anyway. As I was placing my order, I saw a mechanic come up to her and ask her name. She said nothing; she just stared at him. Then he went on to ask for her phone number bringing out his phone; it needed a rubber band to keep its contents together. He received the scolding of his life. When the woman finished serving my dish, this same girl who was angered by the mechanic only seeking to know her name offered to carry my food to the table seeing as the girls who were supposed to take the food to the table were nowhere to be found. “It’s alright” I said, taking it myself. I wasn’t going to let any stranger near my food.

I walked into the eating area to meet this grey-haired black man. I know how that sounds almost racist. It isn’t supposed to be.

I AM BLACK AND PROUD

But this man was DARK; he was almost the same colour as the black trousers I was wearing. It was the first time I had run into him at the joint but he appeared to be a regular, considering he knew all the girls by name. He was trying to pick up one of them as I walked in. She was all giggly till I walked in. He also went silent almost immediately. He was seated strategically so he could see everything and everyone that would come in through the door. I sat to his right.

There was a guy sitting to my right; Very well kept dreadlocks, jeans, V-necked Tee Shirt, and if I had to guess his shades were of the same quality as the Chinese replica of the iPhone 6 he was holding. He kept staring at this girl who was seated on the other side of the table. She was totally clad in denim. She wasn’t dressed in tight jeans as is typical of today’s Ghanaian girl. She appeared kind of tomboyish to me. It was as if she had borrowed her brother’s clothes. but who cares what I thought. “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” they say. Or does “beauty lie in the ice of the ‘beer holder'” I thought to myself as he staggered after her neglecting to finish his boiled yam. I didn’t think that would go well though.

Before she took off, she had received a phone call. Her countenance changed the second she saw the number on the caller ID. “Yes, why are you calling me?” she demanded angrily. “I am coming” she hung up, kissed her teeth and continued eating her food. I guess the dreadlocked guy missed all that or was probably confident about his chances. I hadn’t finished my meal so I wasn’t going to follow them to see how it went.

Safe to say it went well..?

The dark old man to my left hadn’t given up on the girls though. He tried again, this time on the girl who was supposed to be doing the dishes. “How are we spending the Easter” he asked. “y3 b3 k) kwahu anaa?”. She ignored the question and laughed. She whispered something to the other girl and they burst out laughing. The old man dipped his hand back in his bowl and continued eating his abete3, which was cold by then.

I had had enough. Besides I had a couple of meetings to attend.

The question I keep asking myself is this. Does food create the aura of love or do people go to food joints seeking love?

Like the average Ghanaian, i frequently use the trotro and as a result I have had several trotro encounters. Some humorous others not so amusing. To those of you who may be wondering, “trotro” is the term by which most Ghanaians know the buses that ply our streets day and night, transporting passengers to and from their daily movements within the city. I just want to share briefly yesterday and today’s experiences.

So yesterday, the bus “loads” and takes off. A few minutes later on a journey that is supposed to last (give or take) an hour, a young man in the back remembers that he had left something at home and requests to get off. This he does without saying a word. The “mate” was also “unlooking” kraaa.

Barely 10 seconds later,

*exits mate’s head out the window in the usual trotro mate fashion* “Accra Accra Accra”

*The driver got angry and parked* “What is happening?” he demanded. The passengers told him that the mate charged the full fare from the other guy who had to get off so they wouldn’t let another person onto the bus. The driver got mad at the mate, blah blah blah. Eventually we let the woman get on but we didn’t allow her to pay the fare. “After all, what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander” the gray-haired man sitting next to me tried to explain. “Why should the mate get to charge double for the same seat on the same journey” he rationalized.

*ASIDE* Just in case you were wondering, “mate” is our very own Ghanaian term for the conductor.

My friends from Europe and all those other places would be surprised about this. In Holland, London, etc., if you forgot something at home and you had to go back and get it, You had to wait for the next stop and hopefully catch the next tram or bus back home. DON’T DREAM ABOUT A REFUND. NOBODY CARES EVEN IF YOU GOT ON THE WRONG TRAM. As long as you got on, better pay your 3Euros and wait for the next stop.

But then again, these monies go to the government and they would be pumped back into the system so i guess its easy to overlook. The Ghanaian transport system is mostly private owned and these “extra monies” would make its way into an individual’s pocket.

In Ghana, people want a refund if they didn’t get to use the service for which they paid. Perhaps, if the mate had charged the fare from the station to the junction where he got off, there would have been no protests.

Today’s occurrence was both funny and annoying. It reminded me of that expression I learnt back in school. First time I heard it, i was in JSS

Your rights end where another’s begins!

This young man, bless his heart, was sitting right behind me,on the back seat”. And like the pharisees, he prayed. He was LOUD. And he kept going on and on and on.

Let me say this, and in no uncertain terms that I, OSTWIN AWOLEBA ADDA, AM NOT AGAINST PRAYER IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.

I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF PRAYER

it would amaze you if you took a poll on the bus. 99.9% of the people would be Christians but we were equally annoyed by this guys behavior. I’m pretty sure most of us said our prayers before leaving the house. This guys misconduct was just unacceptable. I have prayed in a bus on occasion, that is not the way to go. You don’t disturb everyone if you need to pray in public. Especially not early in the morning on a trotro full of people going to work and quietly making plans as they go. Personally I was reading a book and i didn’t appreciate the rude interruption.

Lets learn to respect ourselves wherever we may find ourselves.

ESPECIALLY ON THE TROTRO. You don’t have a clue the kind of person it is who is sitting next to you.

Just the other day, there was a heavy downpour of rain. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.

What caught my attention was the WIND that accompanied the rain. Then there was the LIGHTNING as well as his noisy SCARY twin THUNDER.. I’m not talking about everyday wind. I mean WIND. The kind that made sure we slept in the dark yesterday (as electric poles came tumbling down) and a portion of our ceiling came off. Oh and just by the way the building was completed barely 3 months ago. I started to pray for Mercy. Hmmm.

My mind was drawn to that story in Exodus 19. Immediately, I grabbed my bible and read the story again. The Israelites, after being led by Moses out of Egypt into the wilderness of Sinai, had to go and meet God at the Mount of Sinai in order that the people of Israel would hear Him(God) speak.

The morning of the 3rd day of sanctification when God had commanded that the people come to the mount, there was lightning, thunder and a thick cloud upon the mount. And the voice of the trumpet was exceeding loud.

At this point in time the people were still in the camp but the Bible says the people TREMBLED…

This got me thinking.

You see, when it rains as heavily as it did yesterday, we get scared by common winds, lightning and the sound of thunder but we do not fear God as much. (LORD HAVE MERCY)

I don’t think my generation knows anything about the Fearfulness of God.

Just for God to come down and speak with His people, there had to be LIGHTNING, THUNDER and a THICK CLOUD on the mount. As if that wasn’t enough, the mount was SMOKING because the Lord descended on the mount in FIRE. And Bible says the smoke was as that of a furnace. And there was the long sounding trumpet that waxed louder and louder..

He asked Moses to set bounds for the mount because anyone (man or beast) who touched it would surely die.

God had initially asked Moses to sanctify the people BOTH on the first and second days. He also commanded that the people wash their clothes. He even commanded that husbands do not go at their wives…. Eiii!!!!

It wasn’t enough that people needed sanctification, even their clothes had to be washed before God could speak to them.

Today, we come into the church with all sorts of filth. We see church elders sleeping with young oblivious Christian sisters, we have choristers going to fornicate on Saturday night and yet showing up on Sunday morning and boldly mounting the stage in their short skirts to minister to God’s people, we have ushers/altar boys masturbating all night-through and then coming to hold around offering bags to receive the offerings of God’s holy people among all sorts of unspeakable things. We even hinder the presence of God from coming down because He(God) cannot be associated with anything unholy.

There was once a time when the ground would open and swallow up anyone who sinned INSTANTLY. There was no room for repentance.

Let us not let Jesus’s sacrifice be for naught.

You see, the God of yesterday hasn’t changed with the times.

GOD IS NOT DYNAMIC; HE CHANGEST NOT.

He is still the same yesterday, today and forever and He STILL DEMANDS that we sanctify ourselves before coming to His presence.

Yes, We are in the dispensation of the Spirit and GRACE and MERCY abounds.

But as Paul said, the abundance of GRACE shouldn’t be an excuse to sin(paraphrased).

A little boy loses his mum shortly after his dad is gone.
He moves in with an aunt who is too busy to accord him the attention he needs
He grows up not knowing happiness
With his parents passing, it was gone.

A young teenage girl gets dumped by her lover.
For a while, he had been the crux of her life.
She had shunned the old and failed to make new friends.
“Who needs friends when they’re in love”, she would tell herself.
With his going, she was left sad and alone.

A mother loses the father of her child.
He was everything to her;
A loving father, a confidant, leader, friend, lover and satisfaction.*moment of silence*
Their 3 year old keeps asking; “mummy, where is daddy?”
“You’ll see him soon”, she replies, turns the other way and sheds a tear.

A rich man with many friends begins to face some difficulty.
He turns to some of his friends for help and realizes there is no one supporting him.
He has to struggle all by himself to make ends meet.
Difficulty revealed that he actually had no friends.

When Jesus hung on the cross for you and I,
He had taken up our nature of sin;
So that by dying and resurrecting we might be reborn with Christ.
But God is a just and righteous God and CANNOT be associated with sin.
For the first (and perhaps last) time, “the holy trinity” was broken for mankind’s sake.
“Father, Father, why has thou forsaken me”, Jesus cried.

God’s whole plan for creating man is FELLOWSHIP.
But it is CLEAR that salvation is a one-man affair.

It is appointed for a man to die once and after death judgement.

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, the bible says.
Make sure you’re ready when your time comes.

When The Master calls me home,I will be by my lonesome And so will you.

In the image of God man was made To be head of all that was made. Every single creature was by him named. Yet by woman his soul was forever maimed.

Then God sent HIS SON as propitiation To revive our LOVE relation On Calvary His blood was shed By whips, thorns and a spear He bled

Unto man He gave THE HOLY SPIRIT Worship me He says: IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH. For I am Spirit THE LIFE, THE WAY AND THE TRUTH!

He gave us Grace To counter the rebellion of the flesh With everyday’s measure renewed AFRESH Yet, His Grace we refuse to embrace.

Doesn’t the scripture say: Not by Might, Not by Power? Doesn’t the scripture say of them that believe: to them gave He the Power? Yet we CHOOSE to behave like the swine; We often seek renewal of God Then as if drawn by a cord We return to the mud.

How long will we stay in this cycle? How long will we remain objects of recycle? God made us for HIS use Not the devils’ misuse.